Friday, 18 April 2008

It’s cold again. More than once this year, I’ve declared Spring had arrived, only to be rudely shouted down by the weather. Flowers and showers alone don’t change the season, just as one warm day doesn’t mean the snow won’t follow. For example:London doesn’t see much snow, but it has had a few flurries since Easter – i.e., since the arrival of Spring. Luckily I still get a bit of a thrill from each snow-fall, especially since the London kind arrives with large snowflakey clumps and melts within hours. While it’s down, the blanketed quiet is such a peaceful cocoon from the normal background hubbub that you only realize the previous noise by its absence.The snow a couple of weeks back combined with our winter veg box glut of celery, and we found ourselves again facing the idea of celery soup. Unlike the previous celery soup (who knew there could be so many celery soups?), we used celery rather than celeriac this time around, and tempered the flavor with white beans and tomato. Since I’m a sucker for a nice sausage, I also couldn’t resist fry up some fresh chorizo and throwing those chunks on top.

Universal opinion among our guests was that the soup was wonderful for the wintery day, and that the chorizo was (naturally) the favorite part. The celery wasn’t overly strong and the tomato did threaten to take nudge aside the taste of the celery a bit. I thought the soup was pleasant but unspectacular, a good winter warmer and an excellent use of celery, but without the chorizo or extra paprika we threw in that it would have been a bit dull.

Everyone's love of the chorizo got me musing on why the world couldn't be more perfect by there existing there a chorizo tree, in which all of God’s creatures could enjoy fresh sausage and eat to their heart’s content without fear of chorizo shortage or animal welfare. Surely this would be the route to peace love and harmony among all creatures, great and small. With a bit more thinking, I realized that however perfect this chorizo tree sounds on first description, God would never allow it since it would turn the world into a Land of the Lotus eaters, with doped-up chorizo fiends doing nothing productive other than sitting in our gardens and nibbling. But if there’s a Garden of Eden, I now know what mine will be stocked with.

Finally, I will introduce to you one of Ambrosia and Nectar's more recent readers, Murphy Moore, who came around to enjoy the snow and the soup. Son of faithful eating companion Amanda, he's not yet old enough to be fed his own meals here so he'll have to live vicariously through Mama's dining in the mean time. He is of course welcome around whenever he likes.

Celery and White Bean Soup with Tomato, adapted from Moro East by Sam and Sam ClarkServes 4-6

murphy's mom checking in here- he's thrilled to have made the pages of his favorite blog! :) mmm... still dreaming of this soup... i finished all my chunks of chorizo quickly, only to look over at annemarie's portion and notice that she had saved some for her "last bites" of soup- so smart! i almost stole some as she looked away...........